City fires officers convicted of drug smuggling

August 3, 2010

The two San Luis Obispo police officers who plead guilty to charges they had attempted to bring Mexican prescription drugs into the United States by way of the San Ysidro port of entry were fired following an internal investigation.

On Sept. 16, Border Patrol officers confiscated more than 800 pills, including both uppers and diet pills, from the two officers. Neither Dan McDow nor Armando Limon had prescriptions for the Spanish labeled drugs.

In May, the officers pleaded guilty to misdemeanors charges in exchange for no jail time and a year of unsupervised probation.

The city issued the terminated officers their final paychecks last Monday. The department paid Limon $150,530 and McDow $154,697 while they were on paid administrative leave. [Tribune]

The officers’ attorney, Alison Berry Wilkinson, said the men plan to appeal the city’s decision to terminate them.The officers have offered to reimburse the city for their compensation while on paid administrative leave by volunteering with the city or taking the equivalent in unpaid leave.

City officials are refusing to release the results of the city’s two-month investigation calling it a personnel matter which is protected under the Public Safety Officers Procedural Bill of Rights Act and the California Penal Code.

33 Comments

A refinery manager with 2000 employees and dangerous processes,
with gasoline, oil, acids, and other dangerous chemicals to manage
and 7 years of higher education makes $ 140,000 per year. Why does
a simple cop make so much more ? And why does he get PAID $ 150,000
for home arrest ? Plus most of this money is probably barrowed from China.

What kind of country have we become ???

Cops wages must be compared to PRIVATE cops and comparable.
Five Cities Securities pays their officers $ 10 / hr. So the gov’t officers should get about $ 15 /hr.
If they don’t like it, they can go work for the PRIVATE SECTOR !

If your police department is lucky (staffed well) there is a ratio in the neighborhood of 2000 citizens per police officer. This officer also deals with dangerous chemicals: meth labs, drugs, gasoline at car crashes, haz mats, etc., and dangerous processes like people who want to kill him or others. Finally the officer obtains pre-employment educational degrees, academies and continuing education throughout his career that resemble the hours put into getting a PhD.

How much did the CEO of BP Oil make while being investigated for criminal wrong doing in the gulf oil spill? LOTS, but he got his due process. He even got paid gobs to be fired!

The amount spent for these guys dues process is trivial when broken down to what it costs each of us. Other things like the price of gas (don’t forget electricity) will go up because of incompetence and willful acts that resulted in the spill. These are the things you should be REALLY outraged about. These things cost you much more EVERY DAY!

These two officers did have to be terminated. They had 800 capsules of diet pills and Ritalin (speed), classed as narcotics. Of course they didn’t have the drug’s labeled, “yes Mr ICE man, these are illegal narcotics, see it say’s so, right there on the label” !

According to their attorney, it was all a terrible mistake because the pharmacist in Mexico told McDow and Limon that they didn’t need a prescription. What? These two officers knew what they were purchasing and they of all people had to know that these were illegal narcotics in the US. That’s why they were buying them in Mexico, no? I would like to see any citizen try to claim ignorance of the law and see how far they get. They would be in jail with a record for drug smuggling, possession with intent to sell and a whole array of other charges. This has nothing to do with whether they are nice guy’s or do a good job and any adult should know that. Any of us would have also had our vehicle impounded and forfeited to the gov since it was used in the commission of a crime. These guy’s have no excuse, try as they might to use the old, “we didn’t know” defense they did the crime and they are now acting like criminals trying to excuse themselves and come back to work for us. Sorry but no thanks.

To Soccargal: Like I said, why should they get “do overs?” They screwed up and if joe-q-citizen screws up, to bad, so sad. Watch the video on the sheriff’s deputies taking the citizen’s guns on this web site. You people need to know, this stuff happens more than you realize. It is usually swep under the rug but it just happens the Grover Beach tazing of an 83 year old man (New Times), this drug case and the Sheriff’s case comes out in the public around the same time. I see it on a regular basis. I thought L.E. got held to a “higher” standard.

Everybody keeps saying “drug smuggling, drug smuggling, drug smuggling”. Weren’t these guys guilty of having MISBRANDED MEDICATIONS? That’s hardly the same as “DRUG SMUGGLING”. That is sensationalism at it’s best, and you’re all taking the bait. I’m actually sorry that these two officers got fired, and I hope they win their appeal. My officer friend knows these two well and says that they are good people and were two of the best officers in the city, with nearly perfect records. Everybody makes mistakes in their lives. We all just hope that they don’t cost us everything.

Wow I don’t have voting on this browser, but by the time I logged in you were in the red, what about McDow courting Grandma, “two of the best officers on the force”, please don’t insult the rest of the force! And you have your facts wrong about the drugs, Missy, better just keep kicking that ball around these clowns were dirty!